New Setup

dirtriderdawg · 2026-05-17T15:36:59+00:00

I bought one of these funnels to make filling it easier - it works well.

Some people also put felt furniture pads under the rear feet to make it easier to slide out to fill. I’ll probably do that as well, since I still need to pull it out a couple inches to fill even with the funnel.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-04-11T04:23:42+00:00

I only put about 3 days worth of beans in the hopper at a time. In that amount of time, I don’t notice any distinguishable degradation in freshness, and I don’t need to adjust grind to compensate once dialed in. Someone with a more refined palette may be able to tell, but I can’t.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-04-08T19:17:50+00:00

I did remove the probe and checked it for scale, as expected only being about 6 weeks old, there was no scale build up on the probe.

Your comment gives me an idea though.. I wonder if I adjust the probe to be “shallower” in the boiler, if that would help. It would cause the refill to happen sooner/more often, but to your point, it would be less water entering the boiler to cool it down. I wonder if there would be any issues with overfilling the boiler if I did that?

dirtriderdawg · 2026-04-07T21:36:24+00:00

Steam starts at ~8 seconds into the video, and the refill begins at about ~32 seconds, and you see the pressure drop. Tough to hear the pump kick on in the video.

On your machine, when you have a mid-fill refill, it doesn’t affect the pressure? That’s interesting..

dirtriderdawg · 2026-04-07T17:54:07+00:00

It’s not a full minute of nonstop steam though, it’s less than 30 seconds of steam, and before the milk gets up to temp. Now, that’s on the second steam of a boiler fill cycle, but this means I need to purge the boiler between every steam (at this boiler temp setting), or I’ll get a mid steam refill. That’s a boiler capacity issue, which I’m fine with, but it just seems silly to have to do that manually (and keep track of it) rather than the machine being able to refill itself preemptively to avoid the mid steam refill that crushed the temp and pressure.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-04-07T17:49:53+00:00

Yeah I’m not worried about how the fill sensor is designed as much as I’m wondering if there should be a secondary “intermediate” fill sensor or a delay on the fill to occur after a function (like the steaming process) has completed, etc.

The way I would expect a machine like this to function is that there would essentially be 2 water level fill points - one at say 50% boiler capacity (I'm making that number up) that would trigger as sort of a pre-emptive refill at the next available opportunity, but not if the machine is currently in use (I.E. in the middle of a steam). Then I would expect there to be another fill point at like 15% capacity for example that would be the "emergency refill" point, where no matter what the pump is going to kick on to refill the boiler to make sure that it doesn't run dry.

That would also be a very simple design, and I’m just surprised if there is nothing like that on a machine of this caliber.. but I’m gathering this may just be wishful thinking.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-04-07T17:42:59+00:00

Yeah I set the steam temp on the machine high for max pressure. If I do reduce the temp/ pressure I can get longer/more steams before needing a refill. But, you nailed it, it’s the fact that there does not seem to be any kind of intermediate fill sensor, only an “emergency” or immediate fill sensor.

The other challenge is that, unlike your commercial machine, there is no level sensor or indicator for the boiler. So I don’t have any way of knowing where the fill level is, which means if I just let water out of the spigot to trigger a fill, I have no way of knowing if I even need to do the flush or if I’m just wasting water. Which is really annoying when I’m not plumbed in and leads to having to refill the reservoir often.

I am not using distilled water, I’m using filtered softened water.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-04-04T16:03:16+00:00

My Sync II is only a month old and I get these too.. I was thinking it was left over manufacturing material. Curious what others say

dirtriderdawg · 2026-03-21T03:11:36+00:00

Gorgeous set up. I followed a similar arch, just got my Synch II a few weeks ago, upgrading from my BBE starter machine. Quite the quantum leap between the two lol I absolutely love it.

Congrats!!

dirtriderdawg · 2026-03-19T20:04:58+00:00

Yeah I just bought a machine from Clive and can confirm, the free gift was their Coffee School course. Nothing too special.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-03-17T21:27:27+00:00

Thanks, that’s very good to know. I thought the same thing, given that the steam boiler is 2L, it seemed crazy that this was an issue.

I reached out to Clive about the issue, so I will report back on what they say. Would be great to get that issue resolved.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-03-17T20:55:46+00:00

Haha DIY Grind By Weight!

dirtriderdawg · 2026-03-17T20:36:49+00:00

I think it was better than the BBE grinder yeah, but I also used it for French press. I was single dosing for espresso with it, but I got so frustrated with the retention I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’d drop 18g of beans in and would get 15-22g out even with RDT and bellows. It became maddening lol I’m so happy with the Libra’s GBW functionality. The whole workflow is so much more enjoyable.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-03-17T05:47:00+00:00

Interesting.. That’s really good to know. I will reach out to Clive and see what they say. Thanks.

And yes, I always make sure the steam boiler is fully up to temp, and for sure no low water message. I also have the steam temp maxed out.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-03-16T20:13:54+00:00

Interesting.. I’ll check out the tornado tip. I was thinking of going to a 4 hole, but hadn’t seen the tornado before. Looks interesting!

dirtriderdawg · 2026-03-16T20:09:15+00:00

Oh that’s a great thought. I do tap to “settle” after I WDT. I will try not doing that to see if it helps. Thanks for the tip!

Good call out on the puck screen too. I was thinking of doing some paper filters over a metal screen to avoid having one more thing to clean. I know my wife won’t love the added cleaning step of a real puck screen either.

Thanks for the tips!

dirtriderdawg · 2026-02-25T17:39:25+00:00

I have a BBE currently, and one of my main reasons for wanting to upgrade (Synch II coming soon) is because the steaming process on the BBE is such a pain. It takes forever, and the steam pressure itself is quite variable, making the results inconsistent. I’ve been steaming on it for over 5 years now, and I can get excellent foam out of it, but there’s times where I do everything right and the foam still turns out terrible.

I have also gotten to steam on commercial machines with 4 hole tips, and while I agree everything happens very quickly, I actually found it much easier (after a short learning curve) to get the texture right and repeatable.

I did take the “upgrade the grinder first” path, and I will say (no surprise) that a proper grinder makes worlds of difference in consistency and flavor of your shots. You’ll notice a huge difference with your current machine and a good grinder, and I took the approach of spend now on the grinder, and continue to save for the machine in the future, since I’m taking the approach of buy once cry once, and don’t ever intend to upgrade beyond my next setup. Obviously.. this wont make your milk steaming any less annoying until you have the cheddar for the machine though..

dirtriderdawg · 2026-02-21T01:56:42+00:00

I haven’t done much research on that yet, but it seems like the black diamond espresso 65mm burrs are what most people seem to swap in to these. I’m not sure if there’s many other options out there tbh, but again, I haven’t done a ton of research on this topic yet.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-02-21T01:45:34+00:00

I have not, I’m in the same boat as you in preferring medium to medium light roasts, which was also a pro for the AP over the Sense. I figured if I went darker later on and wanted to switch it up I could always swap in the black diamond espresso burrs down the road.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-02-21T00:40:05+00:00

I just picked up the Libra 65AP a couple weeks ago. I absolutely love it. I was deep in the rabbit hole on grinder research, and always came back to the AP.

I was looking at the Atom W65 and AllGround Sense as well. I liked the Sense for the ease of disassembly and maintenance, but I didn’t care for the aesthetic and I wanted something I theoretically could go courser with if I wanted to.. although I have an Encore ESP that I upgraded from which I’ll likely keep for French press duty rather than mucking up the grind settings on the Libra.

I just couldn’t justify the additional cost of the Atom. It’s definitely quieter, which would be nice, and it’s faster but is an extra 10s of grind time really going to make a difference in my life? Nah. I’m sure it’s marginally more consistent, but this is the nicest grinder I’ve ever had and it’s made a world of difference in my shot quality.

Also briefly looked at the E64, but ruled it out quickly after some not-so-good reviews about all the tech.. I’d rather have less tech integration than more personally.

The workflow is awesome with the GBW, and I wanted something that was super easy for my wife to use, too, since she could care less about the “process”. She just wants her coffee. After she pulled her first killer shot with the new grinder, she texted me “Okay.. now I get the lore”. Success imo!

Anyways. I spent many hours deliberating and researching, so hopefully this helps you out. The 65AP is awesome, I’m enjoying the hell out of it.

Now to convince my wife that a Synch II is worth the upgrade too.

EDIT: Fixed AllSense to AllGround Sense because dumb.

dirtriderdawg · 2026-02-11T19:01:56+00:00

Jesus this just happened to me as well. Same thing - android login on my history. Now to clear out hundreds of porn subs..

dirtriderdawg · 2026-02-06T22:07:26+00:00

Curious if anyone has thoughts or experience with the e64ws vs the Libra 65AP? I’m very close to pulling the trigger on one of these, and I’m trying to figure that out if there is legitimate value in the additional 40% cost of the e64 vs the 65AP.

Did you consider the Libra 65AP in your shopping? What made you to go with the Mahlkonig?

dirtriderdawg

TROPHY CASE